Kris Attfield is the author of three books: The Book of Finch, Letters to Whomever, The Eagle's Sore: A Novella and Pfhonge, The Inter-Continental Brink of Madness, Air Defence, Doorless Darts and Blaine Bananatree - a bunch of video games.

Thursday, January 23, 2014

What do I say to people who accuse me of 'breaking my covenant'?

So, I haven't ever said this yet, but it needs saying, because undoubtedly there may be someone out there calling me a covenant breaker because of my masturbation addiction.

1) When I got baptized at the age of 8 years old, I didn't even know the LDS church had ever practised polygamy. In fact, I had never heard of polygamy.

2) Likewise, when I got baptized, I had never heard of and didn't know what masturbation was, or that it was "wrong", so when I got baptized, I didn't have the whole contract set before me. I had no idea that I was agreeing to "never masturbating" when I got baptized.

3) I also had no way of knowing that my body would be just physiologically driven to have sex when I grew older. Heck, I'm not sure I knew anything about sex at that age.

So, I didn't know anything about masturbation or sex when I got baptized, and now that I'm older, and my body can't help but need to have sex, I am accused of breaking a covenant which terms were not made clear to me when I made the covenant.

It's possible that this loophole is the reason why various quorum leaders eventually started having us teachers or priests sign agreements or make agreements with our parents saying we would never do these things, to make it clear to us that we shouldn't --- but the problem is, these leaders were just being "dicks" because by the time they were making us sign these agreements, well, we had already fallen and become addicted.

Essentially, though we knew we had already committed the "sin" and we already knew we were "addicted", though we may not have confessed, our leaders were actually forcing us to sign agreements saying we'd never engage in various behaviours even though we already knew that we already engaged in the behaviour and had no way of stopping. Our leaders were just being abusive, is really what it comes down to. You don't really get a choice about whether or not you'll enter into the agreement, it's already pre-determined essentially. Just research the power of suggestion.

So yeah: what do I say to those who say I broke my covenant by masturbating?

1) When I made the covenant at 8 years old, the terms of the agreement were not made clear and I didn't even know what masturbation was or that I'd be driven to do it when I got older by my natural biology.

2) When forcing me to sign agreements or make covenants later in life making it clear to not engage in this activity, well, we were pretty much just forced to sign agreements because we already knew that we were already addicted and I really had no idea how to stop, regardless of how much you were making me sign the agreement.